If you’re tired of inane ads that show fast cuts of shiny objects made to look like sex, then just move to India. No, really. Because here’s the most sensible ad I’ve ever seen to convince motorcycle buyers that a KTM with an underbelly exhaust would work during monsoon season. Now there are so many parts to that statement I approve of… and while this is probably true of any bike – there’s no reason why the exhaust has to be above water, as long as the air intake is – it actually works in making me want to buy a Duke. And while we haven’t had a proper monsoon in about a year (here in NYC), this helps me think differently about the 9 year old bike I ride and baby and try to keep out of the wet…

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1. After after-market exhaust
2. Why do you ride to work?
3. Ride To Work Day – Wednesday July 16!

So it’s Friday and there’s a buttload of stuff to do, but did I mention it’s Friday?  So while you’re giving your critical thinking noggin some much needed seratonin reading about motorcycles, if you run out of stuff you can check out what we’re checking out, or else tell us about what you’re reading today… because that’s the circle of life.  Akuna matata.

The Brammo Sporty Electric for the Street on A&R – I can’t imagine who would buy these things just yet… they’re very expensive for what you get, and not very practical in terms of distance – but these early electric models are important in generating interest for a new category of motorcycle.  Brammo has a new streebike, the Empulse check it out o Asphalt and Rubber.

The Quest for Speed… on GizMag – did you know the founder of GizMag was a bike nut?  Yeah. And I’m pretty sure the regular Giz readers read just four words of this article before moving on to the one about InstGram… but the bike articles on this blog are always fun and informative…  Here’s one about how World Superbike has helped make sport bikes ever sportier…

The Moto3 Race from a couple of weeks ago – there’s a new star being born in motorcycle racing.  In his first race (in Moto3) he got second. In his second race he came in first, 31 seconds ahead of the next rider.  Thirty one seconds!!  And although no one I know watches Moto3, the MotoGP guys saw the race and were impressed.  He crashed out of his third race (Portugal), but keep an eye out for Renato Fenati.

If you’re dreaming of a long distance motorcycle trip in some far off exotic place, perhaps MCN can help you out with their page of links to motorcycle adventure tours.

If you just want to look at pretty bikes, how about one that is cool, rides well, and is actually practical as a daily ride anywhere in the world?  If you like pinups of pretty custom bikes, BikeExif is the site for you.

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1. Reading, Riding and Arithmetic
2. They’re almost here… (electric motorcycles)
3. Superbike round 1

Thanks to you – and probably dumb luck – and O, of course the NYPD, the motorcycle was recovered with minimal damage.  That was quick.  So go ahead and give yourselves a pat on the back, and put another check on that list that says reading blogs IS time well spent…

Stolen bike alert for one of our readers: Keep an eye out for a stolen CB350 (1972) pictured above: it was taken sometime between 11:30pm last night (May 7) and 10:30am this morning (May 8th) from 27 Ten Eyck Street in Brooklyn.  More pics and details about the bike after the jump.  If you see it or have any info you can report it directly to the 90th Precinct (718) 963-5311.  Thanks!

It had Massachusetts plates, and the VIN # is CB3504038009.

Some specifics about the bike:

“Candy Bacchus Olive” green tank
Velocity stacks
12″ shorty exhaust
Clubman bars
One left mirror
Clear lens blinkers on the front holding the headlight bucket and the same kind of blinkers in the rear holding the rear fender on.
Lucas hooded style tail light
Tan exhaust wrap only on the right header
Slipped next to the battery and the battery housing is a cut up Arizona license plate
It has an electronic ignition instead of points
There are 8,8xx miles on it.

The bike was reported stolen to NYPD, so if anything turns up, please contact them. Specifically the 90th pct.

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2. Parking Alert!!
3. Dress for Success the Cold!

I’m not sure what to think about this video. On the one hand it’s funny that this rollerblader was able to tow himself by grabbing onto the back of a sportbike going cross town. On the other hand, I’m worried for the rollblader’s safety. But on the third hand (yes we have three now) he could always let go at any time, and dude you should be able to manage your own safety… Nevertheless, I think this makes rollerblading exponentially more dangerous than riding a motorcycle.

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1. Top Five Motorcycle Misconceptions…
2. “Check Your Helmet Month”
3. Quick body position check…

I’m one of those people who think there should be a special Olympics for steroid users… Why not see just how freakin’ awesome humans can be pumped up on the best drugs science can offer? Except for the part where it might kill the athletes, it’s a great idea! But why not do the same when it comes to motor racing? Why not use all the technology available to make the best and easiest to ride bikes and race them at insane speeds? Well…because… Because the fun of “real racing” is that every person on the field has pretty much the same machine, pretty much the same tires, pretty much the same chances of winning – and yet the rider with real skill will wind up twenty seconds ahead of the ones with less… That’s like magic: it’s giving us the opportunity to see what difference a rider can really make and advance riding technology. So what’ll it be? Would you rather watch real racing without electronics or the full blown steroid Olympics? I can see the benefits of both…what do you think?

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1. From the land of IKEA…
2. Riding to Alice’s Restaurant
3. What we’re reading…

So we all know riding a motorcycle can save you money on gas and insurance, but how about saving $30k an hour? Well that’s what these rocket scientists did by testing their bearings in Triumph Speed Triple instead of sending it to a testing facility that cost $500 per minute. In Japan, all the aviation engineers wound up working on motorcycles (after their air force was grounded following WW2) – since our space program is in the dumps, perhaps U.S. rocket scientists should all go into motorcycles now… hmm…now you’re talking. [file this under found on GizMag]

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The time of year when the best riders in the world gear up for the Isle of Mann TT (starting late May). Watching motorcycle racing can be boring unless you know the tracks and the people involved, but if watching these TT riders doesn’t inspire you…then you probably don’t have the motorcycling gene. The kind hearted person who made the above video also put together a compilation of the 2012 road races leading up to the TT after the jump.

What makes the TT practical for motorcyclists to watch and enjoy is…all of the skills these riders employ are practical for everyday use. Practical, except for the going 200 mph into blind corners with pointy stone walls part.

MotoGP is having a renaissance lately…but MotoGP riding styles aren’t really practical for the street. Heck, it’s not even practical for riding on the track with street tires. You’ll notice the fast riders on the track don’t have quite the same body positions as the MotoGP guys… MotoGP styles and techniques are not always practical for regular (good) riders and street bikes… But a street rider can really go to school watching the IOMTT riders. They deal with the traction problems, road imperfections, and obstacles that regular street riders deal with… only at a much faster pace. Or you could just watch it for the fun of it – but I like to have a reason in case my wife asks, “you’re watching another motorcycling video?”

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1. “IT” sportbike of the year…
2. What fast looks like…
3. Cornering body position

The Canadian who got his R1 impounded last week clearly had the wrong idea…but underground race videos have been around since before the advent of the camcorder.  The most famous and most beautiful is unfortunately a driving video, but it features some impeccable driving (just listen to the downshifts) on open public streets in Paris, called: C’était un Rendezvous. The entire drive was contained on one 35mm reel.  The driver’s identity is unknown, but there are rumors it was a famous race car driver, or possibly the director himself.  The director was arrested at the first screening of this short film (Source: Wikipedia)…so that’s good to keep in mind should you feel inspired by this. Fast forward to the late 1970′s and Paris had another speed demon, this time on a motorcycle, who called himself the Black Prince…

The Black Prince
In 1989, the Black Prince took a camcorder and recorded an epic lap around Paris through traffic in just 11 minutes (video above). I believe this is still the record today (for rush hour). In order to get away from all the unwanted attention from police, rumors were circulated that the Black Prince died in an accident trying to top his record… but people in the underground racing community agree that the Black Prince is alive and well, and still riding today. If you’re interested check out the mini-documentary below…

The Age of Ghost Rider
Since this time, the crown for underground motorcycle racing has been passed to a Swede who goes by Ghost Rider. There used to be a decent Wikipedia entry on him, but it’s been taken down for some reason. Like the Dark Prince, Ghost Rider has had rumors of a fiery death; meanwhile people in the riding community know the rider’s identity: a local (if you live in Sweden) rider who works at a Suzuki dealership and holds the worlds record for high speed wheelies.

As an homage to the Black Prince, GhostRider managed to beat his record for a lap around Paris… but on empty roads at night. Still quite a feat!

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2. A good ride…
3. Warehouse racing

One: you shouldn’t ride dangerously. Two: if you do ride dangerously you shouldn’t video tape it. Three: if you do one and two, you shouldn’t post your video on the internet with the name of the road you were on advertising your top speed. This Canadian rider wanted to show off his high speed (but otherwise boring) run and got a visit from the local mounties… because (duh) the police can request the IP address of your YouTube upload. Source: Jaloplnik.

My high IQ friends sometimes cringe when people call athletes “geniuses.” Guys like Rossi probably won’t qualify for Mensa…yet how do you explain when someone is able to problem solve (ie find the fastest way around a track) on such a high level that rows of technicians with computers can’t match? Well it’s a different *kind* of genius – that applies to many sports, and especially motorcycle racing. The act of riding a motorcycle doesn’t happen just in frontal lobe decision making, but in finely tuned subconscious “habits.” So you will never be able to do something like “blip and downshift while hard braking” by actively thinking about it. Actively thinking about it will probably mess up your timing. Instead you have to practice these skills until they become automatic “habits” that work in the background while you’re thinking about other things. The “genius” that some racers have is the level to which they can make these things automatic, and how well they can perform these skills in the automatic state so that they can focus on the actual “racing”…

Valentino Rossi’s trouble with Ducati’s MotoGP bikes is interesting! Yes we know the that Ducati MotoGP bikes are true prototypes, unrefined and brutal to ride (unlike the more refined Hondas or Yamahas)… But Rossi, who is perhaps the greatest rider in history so far, is struggling to keep up with lesser riders on the same bike! What gives?

It seems that all the finely tuned habits that he’s mastered over the years just don’t work on this bike – the front end behaves too differently from the Japanese makes (that’s what they say, I wouldn’t know). And so his finely tuned set of riding habits don’t work for him here… We can see it in his body positions on the Ducati. He doesn’t look like the same comfortable leg dangling out and out dueling Rossi we knew a couple of years ago. So far it looks like he’s trying to change the bike to fit into his old set of habits. The problem is that habits need constant reinforcing, and can change or be forgotten, so that even if the bike was better, it might not show in his performance right away. More deliberate riders like Casey Stoner were able to adjust their riding styles to the bike more – but they lack the killer instinct that Rossi has in battling opponents (who are sometimes faster) for a pass.  

So how come less experienced riders are having an easier time with the Ducati than Rossi?  The bottom like seems to be: the Ducati requires a different riding style, and he hasn’t had to think about how to ride in a very long time…his learned habits have worked on every bike up to now, so that he could focus more on the actual racing (by that I mean the dueling and passing, hunting down the otherwise faster bikes in front of him).

For us mere mortal riders, this means that the act of riding better is really about developing and honing good riding habits. Technical things like braking (front and rear), throttle blipping, shifting, shifting, body position. But also things like: how we scan the road ahead of us, being aware of traffic along side (and behind), timing a pass, choosing lines. These things are learned habits that can either make us or break us…

Related posts:

1. Get better gradually…
2. Working on throttle control…
3. Riding Tips: Finding the right Position